SchoolSocialWorkinWestVirginia

SB 312 (2017) goes to Study Resolution

NASW WV member Gary McDaniel, LICSW is featured in an article in WV Focus magazine:

SB 312, Establishing four-year pilot program to have social workers in public schools, was discussed at length by a very supportive Senate Education Committee. The bill sponsor is Sen. Randy Smith (R-Tucker), who introduced similar legislation as a member of the House of Delegates. Social Worker Janette Lewis of Monongalia Co. Schools spoke passionately and convincingly about the need for more School Social Workers, to the extent that at least three additional Senators pledged to support the bill. Ultimately however, funding concerns lead to the recommendation that this become a study resolution. This means that the concept will be discussed during this summer/fall legislative interim meetings. With luck, an interim bill recommended for passage by the full Legislature will emerge. NASW WV will be working to support this!

NASW WV member Gary McDaniel, LICSW is featured in this timely article from WV Focus magazine:

“It’s hard to learn on an empty stomach,” says Morgan County Schools Social Worker Gary McDaniel. A joyful bear of a man who tops his graying curls with a bowler hat, he’s a main architect of the school system’s common-sense mental health interventions, which have few parallels in West Virginia. “You gotta meet the fundamental needs first. School isn’t shelter, food, belonging—but it can help with those things, if we let it. Then we can teach and kids can learn.” Quiet hallways and kids who wave from the cafeteria line when their principal walks by seem to suggest McDaniel is onto something.